Wednesday, May 21, 2008

“Feminist witches,” etc.

A comment that just came in to an older post, “Surface Religion,” sneers, “At their mystical core all religions agree? So I am actually in agreement with feminist witches, new agers, devil worshipers, and marxists and didn't even know it?”This language exposes offensive bias so obvious that no more need be stated about that, but it raises a point I made that needs expanding.

What is the mystical core of religions not recognized by many of their practitioners? It is their efforts to direct people toward the spiritual core of the universe, what we call God. Each religion attempts to explain this unexplainable Source of all, this Formlessness that is God. It can do so only by using images grasped by our senses in a concrete physical world. We focus on the concrete imagery of our religion, which is to say, its mythology, but these symbols are not the core of the religion.

When we stay with the images instead of recognizing the larger Reality they point to, we slide toward us versus them thinking: Our religion, our language, our customs are right. Theirs are strange, abnormal, and wrong.

Welcome

Interested in religions and spirituality? You've come to the right place.

In Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,/ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” This is a two-edged challenge. It invites believers to rethink their dogmas, and it challenges people without faith to rethink their certainty that everything religious is bunk.